Alexandra Shulman speaks about this cover as part of a feature about body image in The Observer (guardian.co.uk):

Quote:

I ask her about other myths – are there any commonly held beliefs about Vogue, the industry and body image? Her eyes fall on the magazine shelf. "Ah! I know one!" she says, leaning in. "We shot Adele for our October cover, and everyone said: 'How typical of Vogue – they shoot Adele and only show a head shot.'" It's true – bloggers were disgusted that they hid her size-16 body.

"But Adele would not let us pull the camera back," Shulman explains. "As soon as any of her body was shown on the camera's digital screen she'd say no. It was her desire to have a head shot, which I found very frustrating. I was desperate for a full-length picture." That issue was one of the worst-selling in Vogue's history.

^Thanks for sharing this info tigerrouge. It surprises me that this issue was one of the worst-selling in Vogue's history, it wasn't bad in terms of the content and I thought Adele wasn't conscious of her body shape, well she clearly must be. When you have the talent Sølve Sundsbø photographing, why worry?

I am getting incredibly annoyed by Shulman's interviews lately, because i know for a fact she is straight out lying on the record! I dont udnerstand why she would do that, few months ago she said working with celebs is hard because some demand full approvals, and she NEVER EVER gives into that!

Which is not true, and here she contradicts that again. So its hard for me to believe Adele wouldn't allow the full length cover shot when she did it for Cosmo and US Vogue.

Maybe I misunderstood but I thought that I read that the issue of UK Vogue that Adele covered sold well, I read it a long time ago, even before her US Vogue cover because I remember thinking that that may have been a factor in her getting the March cover of US Vogue.